News – Sharks Unable To Overcome First Period, Fall 3-2 To Oilers – San Jose Sharks

News – Sharks Unable To Overcome First Period, Fall 3-2 To Oilers – San Jose Sharks:

San Jose may have lost 3-2 against Edmonton Wednesday night, and fell behind 3-0 in the first, but Team Teal played much better than those numbers would indicate.

“I can’t complain about the way we played,” said Ron Wilson. “We had all kinds of scoring chances. You have to give their goalie a lot of credit. Territorially we probably had puck 75 percent of the time, but the calls didn’t go our way and you move on.”

On one difficult play, with the Sharks trailing 1-0, Mark Bell was kept from reaching the point man who scored tally number two.

“It was just one of those things, when the guy is pushing you to the outside you tell yourself to stop and block the shot,” said Bell. “He kept pushing me, I made a mistake and just should have stopped. I just should have stopped and that can’t happen.”

It’s hard to discuss how I feel about the Oilers game without risking a $10,000 fine from the NHL. Now, normally, when the reffing crew is Dean Warren and Don Koharski, I feel pretty good. that’s a crew I don’t mind see coming in for a game or two.

Of course, Warren was the guy who botched the power play that led to the Sharks going 2 for 1 on the power play the game before.

And in this game — well, about midway through the first period the folks in our section all sort of looked at each other and went “I’m just confused”.

So were the refs. Warren is — just plain struggling right now. no other way to say it. He was trying to call a fairly tight game, while Koharski was letting more stuff go in his end. Early on in the game, there’s a faceoff, and a King picks off Bell — I mean, just steps in front of him, stops him cold from going out to the defenseman, and then for good measure, puts him to the ice. If you want video of “interference on a faceoff”, this is it. Warren got the yells from the Sharks and told them to play on — and the Kings, with no shark anywhere near their defense, got effectively a gimme from the point.

Not too much later than that, while going into the corner, Doug Murray went in with a King, who had position. Murray actually pulled up and came in behind him to chase, and while doing that put a hand on the King’s shoulder. Didn’t grab, didn’t push, it was as much as anything for balance while he let the King go by (to avoid taking a penalty, beacuse he was beaten). Warren whistled it for two minutes holding.

Warren later whistled a puck dead — not having noticed it was not only still live, but that it was on the stick of Marcel Goc, three feet from a wide open net. Losing sight of the puck is one thing, but being that wrong?

and so it went. The Sharks didn’t get a power play until 2 minutes left in the second (at the time, i was 6-0 oilers on power plays, I think). Now, unlike some hockey folks, I don’t think penalties should even up or crap like that but in this case, it was lopsided not because one team was taking penalties and the other wasn’t, it was because penalties were being called on one team, and not on the other. Really frustrating for the Sharks and the fans (who have never, ever done quite so loud or enthusiastic welcome of the refs as that. well done, folks…. but we’ll need about a buck a piece from everyone in the house for the NHL fine…)

Finally, Koharski called a king for interference — and it was, honestly, a LAME call. But he was clearly looking for any opportunity to generate a power play, just to give the sharks SOMETHING. he did everything but get on the mike and apologize for calling a make-good.

In the end, the Sharks lost 3-2. Two of the goals were goals scored primarily by Warren through clear and blatant mistakes.

ohwell. I normally don’t rip referees. And I think Warren is a pretty good one for his seniority, and I like Koharski’s work a lot. I know how tough their job is. I know mistakes happen. I don’t demand perfect reffing. I don’t particularly care if the reffing is good or terrible, in fact, as long as it’s balanced and fair. Stuff evens out, and as long as the mistakes don’t decide the game — the referees did their job.

Last night, it wasn’t balanced. it wasn’t fair. it wasn’t good. and it clearly decided the game.

And I lay this one on Dean Warren. Were I sitting at the right hand of Steve Walkom, I would be suggesting strongly that Warren take a few days off to clear his head and study the rulebook and some carefully chosen video of his recent work, so he can see what he’s doing wrong.

Oh, and some windsprints. lots of windsprints. it’s to — work on his conditioning. honest.

and please, let him ref somewhere else for a while. The shark tank has a memory. they’ll recognize him, and it won’t be pretty.

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